Colorado

[COChix]

Took an evening walk and when I was walking up our driveway, I saw this fly up and roost in a tree above the free range pens. Stayed for a bit, everyone was already in for the night.

 

[michaelpivola]

IN A FEW WORDS, MILITARY AVIATION NETTING! cover your chicken run to 24 inches underground. This material is available at times from surplus.gov.
It WILL stop Hawks, osprey, owls, eagles and ALL other preditors. It is not cheap and it is large and hard to work with,after all it is used on our carriers as a stop netting I.C.E.. It stops JETS.
I have a 6 x 6 x 12 foot run, with 4 x 4 corner posts and pressure treated wood framing. I built the frame, then put this stuff over the structure. I have ospreys, large raccoons, nutria as well as the springtime alligator! IDK about the alligator but it will stop the rest of the critters when used properly.
Shipping cost me $70.00 and when i bought the 20 x 50 section, the cost was 125.00 USD.
I am in Jacksonville,florida.
Hope this helps and check to see if you can cut the material within reason as it is T O U G H. Attached is a section of my run showing the previous material which was destroyed by an osprey ( fl.wildlife came out to remove the bird) my hens were still locked up from the night THANK GOD!

Happy henning
Michaelpivola

 

[Jmarron77]

Hi Colorado! I'm in elbert. I have 6 pullets that are 3 months old. I have always wanted chickens and now that I do I'm loving every minute with my ladies. they are hilarious and very sweet girls. Looking to try to hatch ome eggs after a botched attempt. : ( I learned a lot and will succeed eventually.

 

[Latestarter]

Hi Colorado! I'm in elbert. I have 6 pullets that are 3 months old. I have always wanted chickens and now that I do I'm loving every minute with my ladies. they are hilarious and very sweet girls. Looking to try to hatch ome eggs after a botched attempt. : ( I learned a lot and will succeed eventually.

Greetings @Jmarron77 !

and to the Colorado thread! Glad all is going well with your new endevour w/chickens! They can be a lot of fun! If your girls are 3 months, you've still got a while to go to POL (point of lay)... Estimate 20-24 weeks. What breed(s) do you have? Ummm just as an aside, if you hope to hatch eggs from your girls, you're gonna need a rooster to fertilize...

just sayin'

 

[Jmarron77]

thanks for the welcome! I have 2 easter eggers..2 buff orpingtons. ..2 rhode island reds and 2 black australorps. I'm buying my eggs to hatch from a hatchery online. I really like the lavender orpingtons. hopefully I'll get some to add to my flock!

 

[Percheron chick]

There are challenges to hatching shipped eggs. I would start with a batch of local eggs. Won't hurt as bad if you have a incubator mishap.

 

[COChix]

IN A FEW WORDS, MILITARY AVIATION NETTING! cover your chicken run to 24 inches underground. This material is available at times from surplus.gov. It WILL stop Hawks, osprey, owls, eagles and ALL other preditors. It is not cheap and it is large and hard to work with,after all it is used on our carriers as a stop netting I.C.E.. It stops JETS. I have a 6 x 6 x 12 foot run, with 4 x 4 corner posts and pressure treated wood framing. I built the frame, then put this stuff over the structure. I have ospreys, large raccoons, nutria as well as the springtime alligator! IDK about the alligator but it will stop the rest of the critters when used properly. Shipping cost me $70.00 and when i bought the 20 x 50 section, the cost was 125.00 USD. I am in Jacksonville,florida. Hope this helps and check to see if you can cut the material within reason as it is T O U G H. Attached is a section of my run showing the previous material which was destroyed by an osprey ( fl.wildlife came out to remove the bird) my hens were still locked up from the night THANK GOD! Happy henning Michaelpivola

Thanks for the tips on the Aviation Netting.

Hi Colorado! I'm in elbert. I have 6 pullets that are 3 months old. I have always wanted chickens and now that I do I'm loving every minute with my ladies. they are hilarious and very sweet girls. Looking to try to hatch ome eggs after a botched attempt. : ( I learned a lot and will succeed eventually.

thanks for the welcome! I have 2 easter eggers..2 buff orpingtons. ..2 rhode island reds and 2 black australorps. I'm buying my eggs to hatch from a hatchery online. I really like the lavender orpingtons. hopefully I'll get some to add to my flock!

Welcome to the Colorado BYC family! Nice variety of breeds you have should have a pretty egg basket. Careful what you wish for, CHICKEN MATH is no joke, we started with our original flock 04/15/14, we ordered a rainbow assortment cold hardy breeds and two buff Oroh rooster and a meal maker, so 29 total. It has been an amazing journey since then, we have lost birds to predators, had a few just die, we ended up with two mean RIR roo's from our order which we processed, our two buff's eventual ended up in s death match and we processed our second in command. This was all before they were a year old no less, after a year, I had the hatching bug (no thanks to the fine folks on this thread) so I loaded an incubator with 42 eggs from our flock. We successfully hatched 16 total (not great odds, but our flock was just a year and that affects fertility as well as the hen/cockerel ratio), 1 passed was very premature looking, we successfully hatched 8 males and 7 females from our barnyard mixed flock. I also gave one of our broody Cornish 8 eggs and she hatched 3. At one point we had 39 birds from varying ages of newly hatched to one year old egg layers. So it gets out of hand fast! Don't get me wrong, it was well worth every happy and tearful moment and wouldn't change it for the world. Have fun and don't be afraid to ask questions, we all have learned by doing and asking those that have gone before us.

There are challenges to hatching shipped eggs. I would start with a batch of local eggs. Won't hurt as bad if you have a incubator mishap.

good suggestion, hatching eggs can be expensive. So we processed our eight, 4 month-old cockerel's this weekend. We did four Friday and four yesterday. Took us 2 hours from start to finish for each batch. We got smarter about our process and made hanging cones and slit their throats rather than the chopping off of their heads. A lot less traumatic for all involved and no flopping around, much more humane. Here are pics of our set up.

We have a ceremony with each bird paying reverence for their live that we are about to take. It was pretty emotionally and physically draining, but very satisfying to have come full circle with our flock. Yes, I actively participated in slitting of the the throats, it was the only way for me to have the closer with them. I hatched and raised them, we raised the original flock, we have been through the ups and downs and now it was ultimately time for the birds to pay back to us and our family. This is after all why we got chickens, to become intimately connected to our food source. MISSION ACCOMPLISED! We are now down to 7 laying hens, 7 pullets and one buff Orph roo. Things are within balance again and the flock has their enclosed run back as well as their free range pens, they are pretty content. Hoping for pullet eggs any day. Still battling Mamacita and her broodiness. I noticed now that they young cockerel's are all gone she has been out more with the flock. Also a few days after all the moulting talk on here it was like a feather explosion here. Our one year olds all suffered and the roo as well. So I have switced to an organic feed with all the added supplements (kelp), made a molt meatloaf, gave the flock a polenta bake and reduced the stressors of the young cockerel's and I see feathers now on the girls! Yea. Life is good in North Boulder chicken land. Fall is here!

 

[Percheron chick]

I thought about you and where you were with the batch of cockerels. The white roo is getting big but too small to process. I have one EE roo in the batch of 3 EEs and I have another hen on 8 eggs. She had 10 but she ended up on the wrong pile of eggs and magpies stole 2.

 

[COChix]

I thought about you and where you were with the batch of cockerels. The white roo is getting big but too small to process. I have one EE roo in the batch of 3 EEs and I have another hen on 8 eggs. She had 10 but she ended up on the wrong pile of eggs and magpies stole 2.

Yea we are happy with things, I have not weighed any of the boys. We had two white males we believe the BO x Delaware cross. one was significantly bigger than everyone and at just over 4 months he was bigger than his dad our BO roo at least in height, maybe not in weight. He was mean and pecked me several times and broke skin. He was the first to go and my first. Not sure what yours disposition is like, one was fairly aggressive one not so much. We are not certain about having chickens here in the winter if we are in Denver, so we still have Rocco in place for protection. Decisions will be made probably in October. We may process Rocco and move the flock to Denver and not have anything here or we may process him and move girls to Denver and have a few chickens here for eggs and maybe breeding. Too many decision still to be made to know yet the direction we will go.

Are your chicks integrated with the flock now?

 

[21hens-incharge]

I have a couple starting to molt now as well. The SS is mostly naked. The Delaware is slower on the molt and I think one of the leghorns has started to drop feathers. Could be from the Delaware but hoping the leghorns get it done before November this time.

Been very busy lately getting things done before winter hits, or at least trying really hard to. The new flower bed is just waiting for bulbs to arrive now then I can run the drip lines and mulch it. The garden is going gang busters on tomatoes. I have a huge stock pot with stewed tomatoes waiting on me to get the jars ready and get it canned. I still have 2 full grocery bags of red ones that I picked this morning. The Roma tomato plant is producing very heavily right now. I am adding lemon juice when canning to raise the acid levels.

ALL the pullets are now laying including the Brahma. I was a bit surprised to see one in the nest box since I think for the breed they are still a bit younger than laying age. Hatched in the middle of February so that makes them almost 7 months old.

Hoping everyone else is doing well with their fall preparations.